The Man In My Dreams

this is defiantly one of the shorter stories I've written, considering it doesn't exceed the max character count . Havnt written anything in about a month or two so helpful criticism is appreciated or let me know if you like it or not (still somewhat indecisive about the title tho but it'll work for now.)
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The Man In My Dreams

Ever since I was 5, I had an imaginary friend who I named him Albert and every day we would play together. I pictured him with short light brown hair like me but bright blue eyes, unlike me. The possibilities were endless, we would play pirates together, we would color together, we even had lunch together most of the time. I would always tell my mom to make a plate of food for Alby which was my nickname for him. She would always say "Alby told me he isn't hungry" or "Maybe he already ate" anything to keep from wasting food.

The fun never stopped though and went long into the night. He would appear in my dreams and we would play together every night. We laughed and frolicked in my dreamscape, me and him, there was no limits to what my imagination could do then. It was a different adventure for us each night.

But all of that went away when I turned 14, I guess i grew too old for imaginary friends because he never showed up in my dreams anymore. In fact, most of the time I don't even remember my dreams. If I do it happens very rarely sometimes I'll get lucky and I'll catch the slightest glimpse of Alby at some point in my dream. Usually I'll forget about it shortly after waking up though.

It wasn't until highschool when my life started to fall apart. I was a junior and had recently gotten my drivers license so I loved to take little drives at night to calm the nerves. One night I was driving my usual route, windows down, hair blowing in the wind. I spotted a pickup truck heading straight for me in my lane. This street being residential, wasn't very wide with cars parked on the sides of the street. I slowed down almost to a stop thinking the truck would swerve out of the path of my car. But it didn't. Right as I noticed he would crash into me, I tried to dive out of my car. I didn't come out completely unharmed though. As I was trying to dive out of my car, the pickup truck pinned In between my car and the car parked next to me on the side of the street. I could barley reach my phone to call 911. When the ambulances and cops and firetrucks came, there was blood everywhere, trickling down my legs where I was pinned in between the cars. They managed to get me out just in time and rush me to the hospital. The investigation to find out who was responsible was later shut down because lack of evidence.

I woke up that following day on a bed in the hospital Having memories of my dream with Alby was very comforting considering Its been a long time since I've seen him or even had a real dream. But something wasn't exactly right, I couldn't feel my legs. The doctor came in my room and was explaining how the impact of being pinned between the two cars had cut important nerves which were responsible for lower body movement. He proceeded to explain how there was an expirimental operation to permanently restore movement in people with paralysed limbs but the survival rate of the operation was only a 50% chance.
At this point the thought of being a vegetable for my whole life was worse to me then death so I told him I would go along with the operation, knowing full well that I could die on the operating table. He had me sign wavers and my parents respected my decision and signed some parental permission wavers as well. The following week they brought me into the operating room. I was laying there on the table before the surgery, face down. I briefly looked up from the table to see some of the surgeons walking in with there scrubs. They then strapped a mask on my face and told me to count down from ten. I used those last few seconds to tell the surgeon something, "Hey doc, if this doesn't work out, just make sure it's painless". He said he and his team are very good surgeons and that they'll do they're best to which I replied "I know you will doc" and with that sentence, I was out like a light.

I didn't really remember my dream when being operated on, it was one of those times when you fall asleep then it seems like only a few seconds before you wake up the next morning but really it's been 8 hours. You don't really dream of anything, or at least you don't remember what you dreamt of.

The following day I woke up in my same hospital bed, surrounded by my parents and surgeons and doctors and bouquets of flowers and balloons. They all noticed I was awake and started to cheer, my parents were crying tears of joy along with some surgeons. The whole hospital seemed to be there except for the receptionists at the desk in front of my room. I caught a glance of the receptionists, then a surgeon with a clipboard and scrubs walking behind the reception desk. He looked at me with his bright blue eyes and took of his scrub cap to show me his light brown hair and through his mask I could tell he had a big grin on his face, one that made me feel very uncomfortable. For the few seconds I saw him as he walked by, I noticed the black letters on his laminated ID tag, ALBY.